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Associated Press • Friday December 6, 2013 11:00 AM

Sears Holdings Corp. said today that it will spin off its Lands' End clothing business as a
separate company by distributing stock to the retailer's shareholders.

It's the latest move by the struggling retailer to turn around its results as it faces wider
losses and increasingly displeased investors.

Sears had said in October that it was considering separating the Lands' End and Sears Auto
Center businesses from the rest of the company. It did not mention Sears Auto Center in today's
announcement.

Belus Capital Advisors analyst Brian Sozzi said the move shows Sears was unable to get a
buyer at the right price for Land's End and may raise questions about how much other well-known
brand names Sears owns, like Craftsman, are worth.

"It makes you question the value of what Sears is sitting on," he said. "It may have to
continue dismembering itself to stay alive today and shrink from inside out. "

Sears has spun off other businesses over the past two years, including its Hometown and Sears
Outlet stores and its Orchard Supply Hardware Stores, to raise cash.

Sears Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert disclosed recently that his stake in the company has
been reduced to less than 50 percent as investors pulled money out of his hedge fund.

The news underscores the intense pressure facing the billionaire hedge fund manager, who took
over as CEO in February to turn around the business.

Sears and the company's Kmart chain have struggled as rivals have lured away customers over
the years.

Last year, Sears announced plans to restore profitability by cutting costs, reducing
inventory, selling off some assets and spinning off others. Those moves helped it reduce net debt
by $400 million and generated $1.8 billion in cash from the asset sales in the latest fiscal year.

Sears also has been building a loyalty program called Shop Your Way, which accounts for 65
percent of its sales and has tens of millions of active customers.

Still, Sears continues to face losses. In November it reported a wider third quarter loss as
revenue declined 7 percent to $8.27 as the company marked down goods heavily to move merchandise.

Lands' End, which sells clothing and home goods on the Internet and through catalogs, began
in 1963 as a sailboat hardware and equipment catalog, but morphed into a clothing company by 1977.
Sears bought the company in 2002.